Description
This book is set out to provide teachers with a model of differentiation and ways in which the various parts of that model can be adapted to teach the core and foundation subjects of the curriculum. It focusses on the skills training that children need so that they can be successful and independent in their learning. It is a model which does away with the dependency that ‘Differentiation by Task’ often creates. It challenges the notion that differentiation is about accepting different standards and endpoints from children depending on their ability and argues that this form of ‘Differentiation by Outcome’ creates low teacher expectations of children. It equally rejects the notion that in order to get all children to the same endpoint we need to teach them all in the same way. The model sees the current interpretation of the debate about teaching styles as over-simplistic and unhelpfully polarised between child-centred liberals and teacher-controlled traditionalists. The authors describe this model as ‘There is Another Way’. This way focusses on independent learning, skills training and on separating the learning activity from the assessment activity.
The book has its foundation in the following theories:
- Vygotsky’s Theory of thought and language
- Hart’s (1996) Collaborative Learning
- Bruner’s Ideas (1982, 1985 & 1986) on Scaffolding
- Rogers’ (1961) & Egan’s (1982) work on skills training for counselling and effective communication in pairs
- Seligman’s (1978) learned helplessness
- Craske’s (1988) research on attribution retraining
- Pramling’s (1998) work sharing criteria for success with children
- Gipp’s Work (1995) on assessment and learning as separate activities
- Coopersmith’s (1967) and Burns’ (1982) theory of self-esteem and academic success
- Topping’s (1998) research on the benefits of peer tutoring
- Gardner’s (1993) thoughts on children’s learning styles
